Map Shows Where Americans Are Being Detained Overseas

Newsweek

2 days ago

Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
More Americans are being held in Venezuela than in any other foreign country, the State Department revealed last week, buried in a travel warning urging U.S. citizens not to travel to the troubled South American nation.
While a spokesperson for the department told Newsweek they could not provide specific numbers of wrongful detentions abroad out of security concerns, there are at least 43 U.S. citizens currently being held hostage or in wrongful detention, based on data provided by a group that advocates for Americans held overseas.
President Donald Trump and his administration have taken an urgent approach to bringing detained Americans home, securing the release of 47 people since January 20. Dozens more remain either imprisoned in or unable to leave a foreign country.
"The thing we need to keep in mind when we talk wrongful detention, this is hostage taking by foreign powers," Elizabeth Richards, director of hostage advocacy and research at the Foley Foundation, told Newsweek.
"We are not looking at legitimate charges or legitimate judicial processes, as we understand them in United States. When we talk capture countries, we're talking about countries, and the leaders in those countries, who have purposely decided to treat human beings as bargaining chips."
The Foley Foundation, set up in memory of the journalist James Foley who was brutally murdered by ISIS in 2014, advocates for the return of Americans being held overseas. Its most recent annual report, published in March, tracks those detained and released in the past year.
It estimates that 54 Americans were held hostage or wrongfully detained in 17 countries in 2024, with between six and nine in Venezuela, eight in China, five in Russia and four in Afghanistan. Others were held in Egypt, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Territories.
What Is Wrongful Detention?
Wrongful detention does not refer to the roughly 98 percent of American arrests overseas each year linked to legitimate law enforcement and judicial processes, the Foley Foundation says. In other words, it does not include those arrested following alleged criminal or civil actions in which evidence of a crime has been made public. The federal government typically allows those to play out in the respective country's legal system.
In order for the State Department to consider a detention "wrongful", a case has to pass through a series of tests known as the Levinson Criteria. That includes whether a person is being held purely because they are an American citizen, if the foreign country is doing so in order to influence the U.S. government, and even if the person is being held in violation of the foreign country's own laws.
Richards told Newsweek that this criterion does not cover all Americans who cannot come home.
"Now we know the U.S. government doesn't publicly put out any numbers, and when we say 43 Americans, we count exit bans in our numbers," Richards said. "Our understanding is the U.S. government currently doesn't count exit bands as wrongful detentions, though we think that might be evolving, and we would hope that the U.S. government would eventually treat exit bands as any other type of wrongful detention."
Exit bans stop people from leaving the country they are in, though they are not held in a prison or jail. The Foley Foundation estimated that around a quarter of Americans wrongfully held last year were subjected to such orders.
A spokesperson for the State Department told Newsweek that the department does not provide specific numbers on wrongful detentions due to privacy, security and "other reasons."
A Difficult Dance of Diplomacy
Left: U.S. President Donald Trump welcomes Marc Fogel back to the United States after being released from Russian custody, at the White House on February 11, 2025 in Washington, DC. Right: US-Russian ballet dancer Ksenia...
Left: U.S. President Donald Trump welcomes Marc Fogel back to the United States after being released from Russian custody, at the White House on February 11, 2025 in Washington, DC. Right: US-Russian ballet dancer Ksenia Karelina and her boyfriend South African boxer Chris van Heerden embrace as she arrives at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, following her release from Russia on April 10, 2025. More
Al Drago/ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images
On May 6, the White House put out a list of some of the 47 Americans the Trump administration had successfully brought back to the U.S. since January, including ballerina Ksenia Karelina, held in Russia for 14 months, and Marc Fogel, a teacher also held in Russia for several years.
While high-profile cases like these receive the bulk of media attention, Richards said many wrongfully detained Americans remain overseas without much hope.
"Sometimes it's difficult for families to get attention to their case and we only know cases where there's public information available, or the family has come to us for support," she said.
"Some families will choose to be quiet, choose not to work with anyone and that's fine, that their right, and we work with plenty of families too, where we don't publish the name of their loved one," she added. "But that's always the choice of that family advocating for them, but if we don't have clear metrics, it makes it difficult I think for the general public to understand the scale and the scope of the problem."
The State Department spokesperson told Newsweek that President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio were committed to bringing all Americans unjustly detained overseas home, but factors such as a lack of U.S. embassy or poor diplomatic relations can make the work of State Department officials difficult.
Many Americans wrongfully detained are held for months or years. George Glezmann was taken by the Taliban in Afghanistan, where there is no longer an American embassy, and held for 836 days. He was finally released in March.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro speaks to supporters as he celebrates the results of the parliamentary and regional elections at the Bolivar square in Caracas on May 25, 2025.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro speaks to supporters as he celebrates the results of the parliamentary and regional elections at the Bolivar square in Caracas on May 25, 2025.
FEDERICO PARRA/AFP via Getty Images
Venezuela, highlighted by the State Department on May 27, also does not have a U.S. embassy. The relationship between the two countries remains strained.
"Venezuelan security forces have detained U.S. citizens for up to five years without respect to due process, in harsh conditions—including torture—frequently based solely on their U.S. nationality or U.S. passport," the department said in a press release.
The Foley Foundation noted in its annual report that through the end of 2024, the State Department had not included those held in Venezuela as wrongfully detained. The Trump administration's announcement last week, which included a warning for Americans not to travel to Venezuela over fears of wrongful detention, marked a shift in U.S. foreign policy.
Work Ongoing to Bring Americans Home
The Bring Our Families Home project, funded by the Foley Foundation, lists the names and faces of those still wrongfully held abroad, including Wilbert Castaneda, an American sailor and father of four who was "forcibly disappeared" by the Venezuelan government, according to the project.
The project lists nine others it is actively working on behalf of to secure their release, from Venezuela, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Afghanistan.
Humanitarian organizations like the Foley Foundation and Amnesty International are continuing their work to free U.S. citizens alongside the federal government. In 2024, 17 Americans were released — including three hostages — with some freed as part of prisoner exchanges.
That number has been far surpassed already in 2025, with the White House making the announcement in early May that the new administration had already secured the release of 47 Americans.
"We are tracking more returns so far for this year than all of 2024, so that is excellent and we would love to see that continue," Richards said, adding that she believes there is always more which could be done by the government.
"One challenge we know our families routinely face is just trying to get U.S. government leaders to meet with them, to learn the stories of their loved ones, and trying to get that up to the president of the United States."